Rogers Bank

Apparently, Rogers is considering offering banking services http://www.moneyville.ca/article/1049879--rogers-applies-for-banking-license

Take a look at the general tone of the comments following the article. Clearly, the issue with Rogers (as discussed at length here in previous posts) won't be solved by adding new products and services. I snapped a shot of Moneyville's poll (after casting my vote).

HP dumps webOS

Just yesterday I wrote that it was time I come to terms with the reality that Palm/webOS was dead, and today HP announced it is discontinuing its webOS operations http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/hp-punts-on-webos-discontinues-touchpad-cuts-outlook/55386?tag=content;feature-roto

Unbelievable.

HP TouchPad not selling well

Larry Dignan reports for ZDNet that HP's TouchPad sales are underwhelming and ponders who's to blame, HP or Best Buy? While he concludes both, I lay it squarely on HP.

Last I checked, the product has never been called the "Best Buy TouchPad." It's HP's baby, and it was up to them to do a proper launch and give the TouchPad a fighting chance.

Ubuntu Software Center makes it easy

At some point I'm going to have to discuss the frustration with installing applications that are not found in the Ubuntu Software Center. However, at this time, it's good to know that there are plenty of options in each category a ton of applications to choose from in the Ubuntu Software Center (USC), and that using USC is easy.

The next step

I've moved up to a full installation of Ubuntu 10.10 yesterday.

I got a desktop with Windows on one partition and Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat installed on its own partition.

Up till now, I had been using the Wubi installer to get acquainted with Ubuntu and, although I'd seen enough to know it would be well worth further exploration, it was clear a real test of its performance couldn't be had in such an environment.

Twitter for news

Last year, during the G20 session in Toronto, the ground shook. I first wondered if some political bombing or subway crash had occurred. News sites seemed jammed...but Twitter started showing an increasing number of people asking "was that an earthquake?" and "did you feel that tremor, too?"

Within three minutes I knew that indeed an earthquake had occurred, with the epicenter in Quebec just outside Ottawa and that it had been felt as far east as New York City, as far north as Barrie, as far west as Detroit and as far south as Baltimore, just because I could see the tweets of real people in real time.

My approach to Empire Avenue

I get the impression that most people who've already embraced Empire Avenue have all their eggs - LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, a blog - in the one basket that is themselves. So, all their social presence is plugged into a single identity.

Empire Avenue, assuming all people are like the above, only allows you to connect to one Twitter account, one Facebook account, etc...so, whereas I might have liked to add all six of my blogs and their respective Twitter accounts to my single Empire Avenue account, I can't.

But I think I've found a way around this limitation.

I hate WordPress (sorta)

I maintain six blogs - five in Blogger and one on my own domain using WordPress, a decision made on a recommendation. I find WordPress to be a royal PITA.

Some light on the dark side

Previously, I tried to explain a little of why there are still Palm OS-5 die-hards out there, myself included. Now that I've begun experimenting with an iPod Touch, it's time to share some first-hand reactions to the new standard.

Are there holes in Dropbox?

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The Information Age
Ours is the Information Age. Pieces of information - data - are the currency of the times. Data are created, supplied, demanded, stored, distributed, lost, destroyed, aggregated, replicated... and there are human beings involved every step of the way, because information is a product of the human experience.

Finally, a negative experience in Ubuntu

It had to happen, at some point. I've found something that is very definitely much easier in Windows than in Ubuntu - creating PDFs.

Sure, spitting out a document from OpenOffice to PDF is easy - there's a print as PDF option built in. But, I don't like using OpenOffice, I prefer using Microsoft Office, and I'm able to use MS Office in Ubuntu thanks to CrossOver.

Dropbox rocks

I migrated from Live Mesh beta at work, defecting to Dropbox, and I'm extremely pleased with my decision thus far.

First, some background to set the context of my enjoyment of Dropbox.

CodeWeavers CrossOver - a definite difference maker

There is debate about whether one should want to be able to run Windows applications in Ubuntu or find and learn to use open source alternatives that may be as effective for getting work done.

Some argue that using Windows apps in Ubuntu is in reality hindering growth for the open source developers. Others say that trying Ubuntu at all might not happen for some who have particular software needs that are either not met by currently available open source aplications or are under-served by open source apps that do not deliver the performance or user experience of the Windows favourite.

Understanding the Palm OS 5 die-hard

With such a wide variety of smartphones out there, some may be puzzled as to why there remains not a few Palm OS 5 die-hards apparently so unwilling to join the rest of the world in the 21st century, yours truly among them. This article is an attempt to contribute to the discussion and help support understanding.

New York Times paywall heralds social media tethering

Readers who land at the NYT site via social media links will still be allowed to read the full article.

Thus, it will make sense for people to search, not for a link directly to a NYT article (which will continue to be metered/monitored/limited), but for commentary in a social media site that links back to the article.

If your work regularly consults the New York Times, you can become essentially an NYT tether - your readers can continue to access New York Times articles through your references.

New York Times paywall: the dawn of social media tethering?

Readers who land at the NYT site via social media links will still be allowed to read the full article.

Thus, it will make sense for people to search, not for a link directly to a NYT article (which will continue to be metered/monitored/limited), but for commentary in a social media site that links back to the article.

If your work regularly consults the New York Times, you can become essentially an NYT tether - your readers can continue to access New York Times articles through your references.

A tale of two updates

My boss lost data from his Blackberry because a Windows Update screwed up Outlook's auto archiving function. Of course, Windows didn't tell us it did this, that would just be too helpful - nah, it just dumped data and the update removed the user's ability to turn off auto-archiving. 

Tech support people at various organizations kept telling us to go to Tools|Options...blah blah and then click Auto-archiving to turn it off...but the button wasn't there, and no one knew what to do about it.